


the coward

by relationshipcrimes



Series: entomology [11]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mild Vore lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 23:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18904912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: The Radiance said: Being and Nothingness does not separate us. We were siblings from the moment we made ourselves and will stay siblings to the moment we are unmade, and maybe even then. Do not worry, little brother. There is nothing to fear.





	the coward

**Author's Note:**

> i started this as a musing for a different project and i only finished it because of spite. i'm not even sure that i hold this backstory to be my headcanon, but this is the story that i managed to finish.

To this day, Grimm is not sure if the moths loved the Radiance because she built them to love her, or if they were simply stupid. Grimm can concede he was young and blind, back then, and he could hardly have been expected to know the answer in his youth; but his vision of Sister Dearest has not changed with age and he does not know if he can truthfully say anyone is not so understandably self-centered. There is simply no one who isn’t. There never will be a single god, king, beast, or tiny bug in the entire history of everything that ever was and ever will be who didn’t try to imprint the shape of their deepest desires and needs into the soft clay of the world.

Wanting a world that will accept you as you are is only par for the course—a commonality among people that’s practically gauche. People only don’t think so because not everyone has the opportunity to make an entire race of _precious_ moths purely to stroke your massive, throbbing ego. (And Her _precious_ moths abandoned her in the end, anyway, which would bring Grimm some measure of mirthless satisfaction if he were bitter, which he certainly is not.)

It turns out that most mortals and immortals want the same things: to be watched, to be desired, to be known, to be loved, to be less alone.

At any rate, Grimm knows firsthand that for all her flaws, his sister is, indeed, not unlovable.

 

*

 

It was She who’d first Thought, and from there first Imagined, and from there first Hoped, and from there first Dreamed. And from Dream came Existence, and from there, the world was rent permanently into Existence and Nonexistence.

Such is the way of being a god. You think, you know, you hope, you are, you will, you do, it is. And sometimes you blink and you’ve torn the entire world into Being and Nothingness.

Such is the way of being a sibling, however: Grimm has a laundry list of the things that his sister did wrong. This is the first.

Grimm was not in favor of this new development, but it didn’t matter, because the Radiance was of the opinion that Grimm was being a coward as he always was, which was _not true_ , thank you, and Grimm did not appreciate the comment. The Radiance said: Being and Nothingness does not separate us. We were siblings from the moment we made ourselves and will stay siblings to the moment we are unmade, and maybe even then. Do not worry, little brother. There is nothing to fear.

(Which was _really_ not true. Grimm had no fear whatsoever of the Nothing, and to this day, there only things worth fearing are firmly in the realm of the existing.)

Still, it was hard to win an argument when there’s only the two of you to have a conversation. Not a lot of leeway. More difficult to storm off to have a good sulk because, well, there really is only the two of you, and what else are you going to do if not to get along? When you’re family, and when you’re also one of the very few gods existing in all of reality, you haven’t got much else of a choice but to co-exist. And before the moths came around, before there was anything to exist, the Nothing was just Everything, and then there really was no other choice. But—ah—Grimm is not bitter. He is not bitter at all. He is merely trying to say the truth.

Anyway, Grimm told the Radiance, completely unbitterly, that the Radiance had created the moths in her own image (since there were very few other images to go off of), and then created the light, which permanently damned the lot of everyone everywhere to need light to see and function, unable to embrace sightlessness or nothingness; and so the moths were locked permanently into their being, unable to be anything else or anything less or anything more.

And the _insane_ part of it was that Grimm had to watch as the moths came to _adore_ the Radiance for crippling them so.

You’ve practically imprisoned them, Grimm argued. Look: their souls can’t even divorce their bodies; the poor things rot when their carapaces do and are lucky to leave behind a memory. The Radiance agreed peacably, because she didn’t really care about that. And Grimm went on: you’ve made them dependent on your light, put them on the knife’s edge between being and obliteration, cursed them with neither immortality nor unexisting. And the Radiance agreed to that too. And Grimm went on: You’ve coerced them to love you out of no free will of their own, trapped them to no other way of living.

And the Radiance’s expression darkened.

I’ve done no such thing, she said lowly. They love me of their own volition. It would not be love if they didn’t. I would never resort to such things. I am not unlovable.

Grimm fell silent.

 

*

 

Now, Grimm was not _jealous_ , per se. Grimm did not and does not _do_ jealous. Envy is a state of unoriginality. He thinks he can do better craftsmanship than coveting someone _else_ ’s work.

But there is a feeling in his chest—a discontent—a feeling of unease. This is what the Radiance would refer to as Grimm being her cowardly little brother, having never truly known himself, still in her shadow. Grimm doesn’t know if that was true.

Still: he could admit to feeling left out, whatwith Sister Dearest’s new adoring entourage, fawning and praising and worshiping Her every move. He could admit only to feeling… _outdone_. It’s already a harsh task to compete with your elder siblings; when your elder sibling created life and light and creation itself, this task becomes marginally more difficult.

So Grimm skulked off into the rest of the world, treading through all the Nothing that had just shown up because Sister Dearest had just made Something, and he took it for granted (like a young fool) that he was afforded safe passage through Nothing because back then Nothing was rather accommodating and didn’t honestly give too many damns about anything, as it was Nothing and thoroughly content to just be.

And it occurred to him—him, a being of Something up to his knees in Nothing—that for everything in the universe, there must be its equal and opposite.

For life, death. For hope, despair. For movement, stillness. For light, dark.

It was only right, he thought to himself. Equal and opposite. (He wasn’t bitter, _clearly_.) And the Nothing could not be depended on to be Sister Dearest’s equal and opposite; the opposite of creation was not Nothing, but destruction; the opposite of the light was not Nothing, but the dark. There was not yet Something that was a true equal and opposite to Sister Dearest, who, Grimm reasoned, would certainly benefit from having an opposite. (Keep Her in line. Remind Her of who he is.)

What Grimm created, then, was not despair, although it had despair; and not destruction, although it had destruction; and was not darkness, although it had darkness. It was born of his own heart, _was_ his own heart, pulled the pure opposite of Dreams, Possibility, and Creation out of his darkest corners of his own honesty.

Grimm reached into himself, into his chest, around his beating heart, sunk his claws through the arteries, pulled, let the veins stretch, snap—

—and out of Grimm, clutched in his bloody hands, came the Fear of being left alone; the Fear of being left behind; the Fear of being without home, of being lost, without kin; the Fear that one day, he would have no one and nothing, even as he feared becoming nothing more than he feared having no one, and fearing the day when he would be the last god standing.

 

*

 

Fear, suddenly, was everywhere: The moths refused to go out into dark corners of the land, began to fear each other, isolated themselves, spoke in whispers, hung up talismans to ward off Fear, argued amongst themselves, fought amongst themselves, killed amongst themselves. And Grimm was pleased with himself, for all the young and foolish reasons he held close to his heart back then: he enjoyed seeing discord, chaos, his elder sister’s plans thrown off kilter.

He did not, at the time, feel pleased because bugs huddled closer together for fear of loneliness, banded together for fear of death, shared food and drink for fear of hunger, sang songs and made merry for fear of misery. They didn’t just dream of creation, but put their blood and sweat and tears into creation to make great works of art, massive sculptures and buildings, for fear of being forgotten. They became kinder for fear of chaos. And the world spun round in good harmony, gaining centrifugal force, greased lightning fast as Creation and Fear worked Equal and Opposite and Together, a pair of dancers spinning with the force of their partner’s weight.

Grimm’s beating nightmare heart took root in his half of the Dreamscape, swelled and burned, wove its aortas and arteries through the minds of all living things, and grew strong. He might have the heart of a coward, but his nature was still of a god; he couldn’t have stopped himself from reshaping the Dreamscape in which he lived if he’d wanted to. Where Dream and Nightmare blended together came the first kingdoms. Grimm forgets, nowadays, what those first kingdoms were called; they were so long ago and hardly knew to call themselves by any name, but he remembers they were squat, small, and had no such fanciful dreams of glory—not when Fear lurked just outside their door, reminding them how close they were to death at any moment. Wind and rain and snow fell harsh on their windows, seeded strong to the pulse of Hope and Fear.

Soon, they called the visions “nightmares.”

When Grimm returned to his sister, it was with triumph. He didn’t _say_ that he was just pleased with himself for having thrown a clever wrench in her gears, but that was part of it. Instead, he said that he had created balance: an equal and opposite, a counterpoint to the Radiance’s light.

She didn’t like balance.

But look at all that Fear had done to amplify all her good work, Grimm had said.

She hadn’t asked.

Now Grimm pulled himself up into his wings, not nearly as fine and grand as his sister’s but nonetheless the perfect length to wrap himself with; he stood his ground, drew himself up. Don’t you see, Grimm said, how the world has become even more your great vision with the proper edge of bitter, bitter fear?

The Radiance’s eyes burned, and her expression sunk deep into the shadow of her fur.

He’d made her a gift, Grimm said.

Silence.

Done her a _favor_ , even, Grimm insisted.

Sister Dearest, God of Dreams and Possibility and Light, Of Her Majestic Radiance, did not accept favors.

 

*

 

Now, you see, here’s the thing about the Radiance—she simply never accepted any way but her own. She wanted everything exactly how she wanted it, exactly how she asked. Always. About everything. No excuse, no pardon, no cut corners, no compromise.

Her way, or everything could burn.

It is a flaw of hers—or maybe a strength. It is unclear to this day. Either way, her uncompromise is defining. And Grimm knows firsthand that, for all her flaws, his sister is not unlovable. When the Radiance raised her swords, he was not brave enough to hate her, and held no weapons but his Nightmare Heart in his hands, as if still in offering. And when the Radiance advanced, he was not brave enough to face his death at his sister's hands and choose death over loneliness.

She cut him down while he ran.

 

*

 

The rest is history, as they say.

 

*

 

Grimm knows his sister is not unlovable, and he also knows he didn’t do everything right. The things he did do right, he didn’t do on purpose. Grimm suspects that he doesn’t need to have all the answers and do everything right. They are all the sum of unforeseeable consequence. He did not expect to be mortal, and yet here he is. He did not expect to have lived as long as he has, and yet here he is.

Nowadays, he sits on the edge of the Abyss and swings his legs off the glass platform, like proper teenagers are wont to do. Nowadays, he is older, and also younger. He’s got a little more Void in his body than he used to. He hasn’t seen Brumm again, yet, but he knows that the Grimm Troupe will come for him soon. He hasn’t quite molted the last of his adolescence away. He is as old as time itself and, he supposes, soon to be the oldest sibling, the last of his family of two.

He can hear the Radiance’s bones crunching. The weight of the Abyss crushing, compacting, smothering. He can feel it digesting her. She is still alive. She won’t be for much longer.

Grimm shall not complain whatever comes his way, so long as he gets out of it alive, and won’t ask for anything more—not company, not legacy, not love. But for his sister—his sister is not unlovable. After all, Grimm is still here, alive, his Heart bloody and beating where it lies trapped in the Nightmare Realm. His heart will love her long after she is gone, to the squelch of her open marrow.


End file.
